Hong Kong (CNN)Hong Kong lawmakers dangle postponed a debate over a controversial bill that can perhaps well permit fugitives to be extradited to China after protesters blocked roads and restricted in discovering entry to to authorities structures.

The metropolis’s legislative council change into because of the clutch the second reading of the bill on Wednesday morning native time. The bill has been met with current opposition, alongside with from the metropolis’s historically conservative enterprise community, and brought on extra than 1 million of the metropolis’s 7.4 million inhabitants to dangle interaction to the streets in verbalize on Sunday, in accordance to organizers.

In an announcement on its web location, Legislative Council President Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen acknowledged Wednesday’s assembly would be “modified to a later time to be determined by him.”

The resolution to put off the debate came as tens of 1000’s of protesters as soon as extra took to the streets of central Hong Kong in scenes comparable to the 2014 democracy demonstrations acknowledged because the Umbrella Circulate.

Protesters started arriving originate air the Legislative Council structures on Tuesday evening, the set they were greeted by a heavy police presence and web searches. By Wednesday morning, tens of 1000’s of mainly teenagers had arrived within the region, blocking streets and bringing central Hong Kong to a standstill.

Up to 5,000 police in riot gear were deployed to protect the building. On Wednesday morning, police fired a water canon on a protester and used pepper spray on others. Protesters were considered wearing helmets, goggles and heavy-responsibility workman’s gloves, and pulling bricks from the sidewalks.

A total bunch of companies, fogeys and lecturers called for a boycott of works and college on Wednesday to display mask their opposition to the bill.

Though Hong Kong is a part of China, it has separate regulations that note the UK procedure and no capital punishment, in disagreement to mainland China. Many individuals fright that the proposed extradition law device they would possibly perhaps very properly be taken from Hong Kong by Chinese authorities for political or inadvertent enterprise offenses.

‘Hong Kong other folks are infected’

Wednesday’s protests come only three days after a mainly soundless march in central Hong Kong. Police estimated 240,000 other folks attended on Sunday, whereas organizers put the number at 1.03 million — the latter resolve would compose it the metropolis’s finest verbalize since the frail British colony change into handed abet to China in 1997.

Despite the mass demonstrations, Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam has refused to withdraw the extradition bill, announcing it’s compulsory to wander loopholes to prevent the metropolis from changing into a haven for mainland fugitives.

On Monday, she acknowledged safeguards had been added to the bill to protect human rights and had got no instruction from Beijing to push it forward. Hong Kong’s lawmakers had planned to dedicate sixty six hours across five days to debating the bill.

“Hong Kong other folks are infected,” senior Democratic Birthday party lawmaker James To acknowledged Tuesday. “Our chief executive merely skipped over the individuals’s declare, regardless of the soundless rally of 1,000,000 Hong Kong other folks.”

Sunny Chan, an 18-Twelve months-extinct protestor on the streets Wednesday, acknowledged she change into “mad” that the authorities didn’t focus to Sunday’s protests. “We have interaction to come abet out this day and stand within the front and verbalize and strive and provide protection to my freedom,” she acknowledged.

Protestor Marco Leung, 23, acknowledged there would be no distinction between Hong Kong and China if the law change into handed. “We’re no longer China,” Leung acknowledged. “Police need to protect the voters, no longer the authorities.”

CNN’s Ben Westcott and James Griffiths contributed to this document from Hong Kong.